


Hell in a Handbasket

by Fighting4Fandoms



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Eleanor Shellstrop, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Hellstrop, Love Confessions, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 21:20:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29267139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fighting4Fandoms/pseuds/Fighting4Fandoms
Summary: Takes place during and after Season 4, Episode 2.Michael never had strong feelings over humans before the little experiment, before the four humans, before everything in time and space. Then, of course, he met Eleanor Shellstrop. Arguably the whole reason behind the experiment in the first place. How was it that this small human woman had such pull on his skinsuit's heartsrings?
Relationships: Chidi Anagonye & Eleanor Shellstrop, Janet & Michael (The Good Place), Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza & Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop, Tahani Al-Jamil & Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	Hell in a Handbasket

"Shellstrop is out!" 

Michael didn't flinch along with Tahani and Jason - Janet just stood there with her hands folded in front of her - but there was a strange new feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

Guilt? Was it guilt? 

Ew. 

He didn't like that. 

Dammit. He had to fix this. 

"Oh, I feel truly awful about this." Tahani sighed, putting her hands to her perfectly bronze face, "Oh, poor, poor, Eleanor." 

"I'll go and find her." Michael volunteered, "From her file, I- You know what? I know what to do. You guys just stay here." 

When Michael was first given the neighborhood, his first and only one, he had no idea what he was going to do. All he knew was that he wanted to make it different, something that had never been though of before. Psychological torture. Remarkably, Michael wondered why it hadn't been thought of before. There was a fascinating human expression, "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Well, Michael had seen that words do indeed hurt more than sticks and stones. Physical pain can go away but the scars in the mind may never fully heal. Michael had seen that in Eleanor. The reason he picked her in the first place was because of how her mental scars had affected the way she grew as a person. 

He didn't get it. Why did he care so much about her? She was just a human. A weak, little human filled with juice and made of meat... but she was so much more than that. She was smart, funny, sure she was mean but she changed. He had to admit that she was different. 

He could have asked Janet where Eleanor was but he appreciated the walk to the town plaza. Being immortal wasn't all cupcakes and rainbows, he spent 200 years as an apprentice then when he finally had his big break, a human disrupted that and he hated it at first. The feeling of failure. Eventually though, after the 800 reboot he was actually impressed with her. In a strange sort of way. Every single time she figured it out... or he mistakenly told her. Throwback to that time when the neighborhood lasted 8 seconds. 

He spotted her sitting on a bench in the midst of all the rubble with a tear stricken face. He frowned as he approached the small woman and sat himself on the bench, further away than close to her. 

"I'm sorry you overheard and I'm sorry than they said those things." 

Eleanor sniffled, "They wouldn't have said it if it wasn't true." 

"Do you wanna know why I picked you?" Michael asked. "I could have picked any four but one of those four people was you. Eleanor Shellstrop. What is so special about you? Why did I pick you for my little experiment?" 

"Because I'm an ash-hole from Arizona who only cared about myself?" 

"Partially." He replied with a chuckle. "To be honest, I chose you because I saw that you were a horrible person. A bad person. I never expected you to change this much. To change _me_ this much." 

"Yeah, you used to be such a ding dong." 

"You don't like getting close to people, sometimes it's because you don't want to get hurt but I think it might also be because you don't want to hurt them either."

"Dress it up as much as you want," Eleanor wiped a tear from her eye, "I wasn't a good person. I _wasn't._ I mean, come on! The day I died? I was a dick then got rammed by shopping carts. Karma in a nutshell." 

Michael couldn't argue with her there. He watched back the day she died before he first properly met her in his office that day. Seeing her be rude brought a smile to his face until it didn't. Until now. He wondered what kind of person she would have carried on as if he didn't intervene that time the Judge rebooted. 

"I would've died alone. Like an old maid or something." She laughed under her breath but not in the "saw an annoying toddler fall over in the restaurant way". More like the "it's true and it hurts" way. 

"I still think you're a remarkable person." Michael said softly to her. "I really do." 

"Why do you care so much about me?" Eleanor looked up, her tear stained face gazing up at his. She studied his face. She wondered why he had the skin suit of an older man, with glasses... wrinkles... He could have been a young man with no faults. Still, there was something about him. Something... different. She was seeing him in a different light. He was right about one thing though. He had changed. You couldn't even tell that he was a demon. "Why am I so special?" 

"I think it's a human thing." Michael shrugged. "Sometimes you meet someone and, it may not happen straight away, you see them and there's just something about them. You can't place your finger on it. You can look at them for ages and that thing never becomes clear but it's not annoying. You grow closer to them, watch them grow, and eventually you know what it is. There's still no words for the feeling but you just know what it is." 

Eleanor's breath hitched as Michael edged a little closer to her. She had always been much smaller than most people she knew but like Tahani, Michael towered over her but she had noticed, when she was really angry, even he - a demon from literal hell - could be intimated by her. She didn't love it but she didn't hate it either. 

"You used to be like one of those impossible questions that Chidi always ponders." Michael chuckled. "I'd ask myself "why?" "Why her? What's it about Eleanor Shellstrop?" Then, one day, I think it was when I pushed you through the portal at the Bad Place when I realized that I _would_ do anything for you. I would walk through the IHOP for you." 

"Oh dang." Eleanor raised an eyebrow, "You're serious?" 

""Serious as a heart attack" as the humans say". 

"What about soulmates?" 

"Oh, I used to think that they were made up." Michael confessed, "Just a variable to use in the experiments but now I think that they're not something that's given, I think you can become soulmates. It's like a feeling in your gut." 

"Like butterflies when your anxious?" Eleanor suggested. 

"I believe so. Although, I never understood that expression." 

Eleanor explained, "Well, when you're anxious you feel this strange feeling in your stomach, like fluttering." 

For a while they sat on the bench in the silence. Eleanor never really noticed the silence before. She spent so much time in this place that she never really noticed how quiet it could be when the mind was empty. Well, empty as it could be. At that exact moment she had three thoughts in her mind. 

1\. How much margarita could get an elephant drunk? 

2\. Could Tahani pull off the meat suit Lady Gaga wore? (Well, duh, bro, she could literally pull of anything and still be hot)! 

3\. Did she love Michael? 

Now the third one was the one that was buzzing around her head like a golf ball at a crazy golf course. She never really thought about that one either. She had been with so many guys, even the odd girl but never had she once been with a demon. For obvious reasons. 

She doubted that if she was living her old life she would even give him the time of day. God, she was such a bench. 

It was then, just then, as he spoke about her when something clicked inside her. It felt like when you spent 20 minutes finding the last piece of the jigsaw and the feeling of triumph when you slot that final piece in place. 

As the sat there, in the midst of the destruction, she placed her head on his shoulder and felt at peace for the first time in forever. She felt her eyelids grow heavy and close and Eleanor sighed contently and she felt Michael put his arm around her shoulder. 

"This is nice." She whispered just so that he could hear. 

She wondered what it was like in the real Bad Place. Was Michael lonely down there on his own? The way that the other demons treated him made her stomach clench. He always seemed like the odd one out, just like her. Ever since she was a kid, she never really fit in anywhere. It's only since she had died that she had felt like she actually belonged somewhere which sounded unbelievably terrible and sad. 

"No it doesn't." Michael's voice appeared. 

"Oh dang, have I been thinking out loud again?" 

Michael chuckled softly, "I believe so. It's comforting though." 

"Were you alone?" 

"Yes." Michael admitted rather quickly. "I was very alone." 

"I'm sorry." 

"I wasn't as alone as you." Michael looked down as she looked up. "You've spent your whole life running from people just to not be hurt, you'd rather be alone than be hurt by people." 

"...You wouldn't leave me right? You know, like if you had the choice to leave?" 

Michael didn't really have to think about it. He shook his head, he put a hand on her forehead, moving it upwards until he reached her hairline, "Are all humans as beautiful as you?" 

Everyone knew that Eleanor never had a problem with saying that she looked amazing but she didn't always feel that way. 

"You've seen Tahani, right?" Eleanor smirked. "She's like a literal goddess." 

"I mean it." Michael smiled warmly. "You are a beautiful person." 

"Hmm," Eleanor laughed to herself, "Thank you, Michael. As far as demons go, you're not so bad yourself. Did you feel out of place with the other demons? You've never been _that_ evil and obsessed with bee teeth." 

"I suppose not. I'm like the black sheep of the Bad Place." 

"I think they made a mistake when you came to being pal, you should be up there." 

"Well, so should you." 


End file.
